Fleeting Ambrosia
by pyrorbl
Summary: a little vignette on Rinoa's feelings for Seifer while they were dating in the summer


**Author's Notes : **This is yet another character vignette by me. They seem to be my strong suite in writing. :) However, this one is very odd for me, because 1) it's from Rinoa's POV, and 2) it's extremely... uh, romantic, I guess. I've never thought I was much of one for writing romance, but those damn muses... :) Anyway, enjoy! And applaud me... I actually finished an FF8 fic! ::Goes back to working on her multiple stories with only 3 pages done::  
  
**Disclaimer : **You know the drill - Final Fantasy VIII and all its characters don't belong to me, they belong to the Gods of RPGs, Squaresoft. Except Squall. He's mine. Don't even _try_ to take him away from me. >;)  
  
---------------------------------------   
  
**Fleeting Ambrosia**  
  
  
It's the scent of sweet perfume.   
  
It brushes by you, and for the few moments it wraps yourself around you, it transforms your world. All you can smell is the intoxicating fragrance, and in a heady rush you're transported to a realm of color and beauty you've never imagined.   
  
And then it's gone, as fleeting as the wind; its echo is bittersweet in your mind and always painfully close to your heart.   
  
Summer love.   
  
When I first met him, it was like being swiftly enveloped in a cool, enchanting cologne. He smiled and said, "So you're Rinoa? I'm Seifer. Looks like this'll be an interesting two months." And in his eyes, the warm hint of promise contrasted so perfectly with his cool, confident air. I fell - hard.   
  
Falling in love is like descending into the underworld. You struggle desperately to stop, even slow, your uncontrollable plummet, but at the same time your pulse quickens with anticipation. There's something darkly fascinating about falling in love, in throwing your entire being into the emotions you have toward one person. But then, I've always been like that. When it comes to how I feel, I've never done things by halves. Standing before him that day, I felt like Persephone shyly facing Hades. I was caught completely, but still reluctant and scared. I was young and didn't know how to act; what did I really know about love?   
  
He knew all about it, though. He was every girl's dream - a chivalrous knight stepped out of a fairy tale. His presence wrapped around me so entirely that I could not have been closer to him if I had been in his arms. He was reassuring, gentle, and completely unfaltering. It was the kind of perfume to which you can only close your eyes and surrender. So I did. He was the balm that removed all my fear, and my feelings came flooding out.   
  
Whenever he kissed me, it was like sipping ambrosia. When we cuddled together on his narrow twin bed, I felt like I was lost in beds of rose petals. And when we made love for the first, and only, time, his tears on my skin felt like stained glass breaking.   
  
It sounds silly, I know. How can you feel so intensely about someone you've only spent two months with? You can't expect to know anything about what kind of a person he is. But that time we met, I was surrounded by _everything_ that was him - his dreams, his fears, his anger, his loneliness, his calm, and his incredible love for romance and a broader world. I had no choice but to embrace him fully. And I don't regret such a thing in the least.   
  
I was enveloped and filled with nothing but him, like on the streets when the sweetest perfume is all that grips you as a stranger passes by. I had never known that anyone could be so... intoxicating. When I was with him, anything was possible.   
  
Yet like even the most enveloping fragrance, it faded quickly away. One moment, that fragrant scent is all you know. The next, you're standing alone and still on the dingy streets. Our two months - a mere instant - ended, and he had to return to his Garden.   
  
So I stand here now on the train platform at Timber, waving like a fool as his train becomes smaller and smaller. I can feel him, his essence, fading more and more, until it's merely a whisper against my mind. I had tried to be brave and hold back the tears, but I couldn't do it. They had poured down despite how much I cursed myself as he gently held me and told me it'd be all right. I had wanted our last moments together to be happy, full of smiles, passionate kisses, and the last remnants of the beauty he created in the world for me. But I couldn't hold back the tears, and our last moments together were tinged with sorrow. It's like the last bittersweet moments when a heavenly aroma is drifting away, and you wonder when you'll ever encounter it again.   
  
And like such chance encounters in the street, summer love is invariably fleeting. You can drown yourself in it, but you cannot hold onto it forever. All you can do is hold the memory - the pale echo of the real thing - close to you and hope that someday you'll find such wonderment again.   
  
Yet somehow, even as the thought fills you with hope, you know that things will never be quite the same. 


End file.
